Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Song number 16 is The Christmas Waltz by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. This song was written for Frank Sinatra and appears on three of his Christmas albums. I came to enjoy the song last year during the holiday season.

I'm a little ambivalent about including a Christmas song in the collection, but I have a few reasons for validating it. First, the song is written by Cahn and Styne who were a famous songwriting team who wrote a lot of songs that I love and are standards hands down, such as I Fall In Love Too Easily and Time After Time. So the composers fit the bill.

Second, Christmas music has always been special music for me. I not one of those who find it annoying, especially the classic albums. This time of year was magical when I was a kid. And it probably was the most important time for music in our household. It was played constantly from Thanksgiving until New Years, and it brought us a lot of cheer. Standout Christmas albums from when I was a kid are The Beach Boys Christmas, John Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas, and the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas. Now when I hear these albums they bring me back to childhood memories. They make December feel a little more like it used to - exciting instead of busy as heck.

I worry a little that listeners might be annoyed to hear a Christmas song at other times of year, since it will be placed on an album of all different stuff. But this song is not one of those Christmas songs like Rudolph or Jingle Bells that everybody recognizes instantly although it has been pretty widely recorded. And for those that do know it well, my hope is that it will be a little reminder of winter when you hear it in July. I've come enjoy these kind of seasonal reminders.

In any case, I think it's a nice song. I hope you enjoy it in this holiday season and beyond. Happy Holidays!

Monday, December 11, 2017

This song is really beautiful. I like it a lot. It's from the musical Carousel by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. I just heard the early Sinatra recording a couple months ago and I knew right then that I wanted to do the song for the project. Listening out of context of the show, it's a sad beautiful song.

If I loved you

Time and again I would try to say

All I'd want you to know.

If I love you

Words wouldn't come in an easy way

'Round in circles I'd go.

Longing to tell you

But afraid to try

I'd let my golden chances pass me by

Soon you'd leave me.

Off you would go in the mist of day.

Never, never to know

How I'd love you,

If I loved you.

However, in context it's not so sad. Both the female and male characters sing it to one another and then they totally start making out afterward. So they do love each other, but they're not ready to admit or announce their love for each other yet. I haven't seen the whole show but I was happy to see the scene that features this song on youtube.

The majority of this arrangement was written while I was in Vals, Switzerland. I was playing at the 7132 Hotel for a couple weeks. It was a really beautiful place, and really nice to have a break from my usual life. It was a retreat. There is a lot one must do to keep a house. But I have also become what one could call a homesteader. I am very interested in having meaningful connections to my environment, land (even if only a 1/5 acre lot), and especially my food. So in addition to the usual cooking, cleaning, maintenance, etc, I spend many hours doing things like gardening, chicken-keeping, fermenting, preserving, and farming. I am a do-it-yourselfer; a jack of all trades. And I love that. But let me tell you, it cuts into your artistic time. In Vals, I couldn't do any of those things. I was miles away from my kitchen and my yard. Suddenly confronted with an abundance of time, I first didn't know what to do with myself. Pretty quickly I established a nice routine. After breakfast, I'd do some chi kung, some mediation, some journaling, and some practicing. After lunch I'd take a nice walk in the mountains, soak in the thermal baths for which the area is famous, practice a little more, then I'd play the gig in the evening. I was able to write this entire arrangement of If I Loved You, memorize it, and finish the next arrangement as well.

Coming back to regular life, it became even more obvious just how much time the necessities and the homesteading things take. But I have to say, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm really happy with the path I'm on these days - I find a lot of meaning in it. And it's okay with me that this project is taking so much longer than I originally anticipated.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Hello. Long time no post. I had a lovely summer, which consisted of a lot of farming, gardening, swimming, chicken observing, and not so much standards and piano. I needed a break. I had begun working on this one right after Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most was posted in June, but I only worked on it very sparsely throughout the summer. I returned to more serious work on the project in October, and now I'm pleased to present Peg O' My Heart by Fred Fisher and Alfred Bryan.

Jazzers don't seem to know this tune. The only real jazz recording of it is by the Lester Young Trio, and there is a composed phrase in it that really sounds like it was improvised by Lester. It seems like a natural tune for him, and it's surprising that other jazz players didn't follow his lead and record their own versions. I found out about the tune from Dan, a student of mine in Beacon. He had an arrangement in one of his books, and he told me all about the tune and recordings of it by the Harmonicats among others. I liked the tune, and it's short form, which I welcomed especially after the long-ass Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most. Even the title of that one is soooo long.

I attempted a lot of walking 10ths in both the arrangement and the improvised solo. I love the sound of them. I had worked on them a bit with Garry Dial at the Manhattan School of Music. However, they are damn challenging to play. For those unfamiliar with walking 10ths, they are a series of large spanning stretches in the left hand. Listen to Teddy Wilson for some amazing walking 10ths. I can barely reach many of them. And some I have to roll (playing one note just before the other). I found that they took a lot of concentration to pull off. So as I began doing takes and listening back, it was clear that my right hand improvisation suffered when I was playing the 10ths because they required too much focus. It got a little better, but I ended up doing a lot less of them in the end, just so I could pay more attention to the melodic line. You can hear me fumble around with them at times. Damn walking 10ths.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Lucky number thirteen! Let me tell you, finishing this song can really hang you up the most! This was a difficult one to get done. It's long and repetitive, but with little differences in those repetitions. It was difficult to memorize, and my focus has been all over the place lately anyway. Life! Spring!

The song is Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most by Fred Landesman and Tommy Wolf. This song goes back to my Manhattan School of Music days when I performed it with vocalist and pianist Brenda Earle. I checked out various recordings of it - Ella Fitzgerald, and check out my pal Randy Ingram's recent recording! - but I still hear Brenda's voice when I play it. I like this song. It's got some pretty parallel harmony - similar to Keith Jarrett's version of In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning from the Blue Note recordings, which basically kills me and has always killed me. And the song has an enjoyable "modulation fake out" coming out of the bridge into the last A section.

When I was growing up in MN, summer was the best season. Spring was second best. But after moving to NY, back in 2002, Fall became second best. I think it's because I moved to the city in the Fall to start my master's program at MSM. It was such an exciting time. Spring however became a reminder of probably the scariest transition of my life - that of finishing my degree and entering the real world in NYC. Crappy jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, unsure if my girlfriend really liked me or not (happy to report that we'll be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary this July!). Further more, for many years Spring was always the end of getting paid as my piano students all left for the summer. There was always this feeling of "how the hell am I going to make it until Fall financially?" Fall was a relief. Cooler temperatures, and the return of the my students. Spring is getting better though. I love Spring activities, and money isn't quite as much of a problem as it used to be. But there remains an occasional worried lump in my throat during Springtime. It is true that Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

The Song Is You is a song I've known for awhile. I've always liked the tune and the harmony - notably the sound of the modulation coming out of the bridge. But this tune has always kicked my butt. It was always difficult for me to improvise on these chords. So I thought it was worth it to include in the 24 Standards project, you know to tackle the challenge and what not.

Probably what made it difficult for me all those years was that it's often fast. I best know the Keith Jarrett Trio recording from the album Still Live and they play it very damn fast. Charlie Parker played it pretty fast too. For me, improvising at a fast tempo forces me to fall back on rehearsed patterns that my hand and ear know. I think it's rare to find a musician who can really hear and execute new ideas at burning tempos (Keith is one of them). This has always caused me to dislike playing fast tempos - which has actually been an issue for my whole career. I always have an abundance of slow material and I usually have to write a lot before anything fast comes out. Fast music is overrated, okay.

And when you start checking out these songs historically, with the lyrics in heavy consideration, those fast tempos don't make a lot of sense anyway. So in returning to The Song Is You, I took the tempo down a bit. There were a couple recordings that I liked a lot - one was the Frank Sinatra / Tommy Dorsey recording. (Sorry if this is getting predictable and boring - perhaps I should have done this project exclusively based on the Sinatra / Dorsey recordings. There just so good!) Another one I liked was Tony Bennet and Bill Charlap duo. It's from an album of all Jerome Kern songs. There is a nice youtube video of Bill playing All The Things You Are (also by Kern) for a radio broadcast and he describes Kern as "The angel at the top of the tree for American popular writers."

So the chord changes always kicked my butt, and arranging the song did too. This was the first one that I started over a couple times. I ended up with a little two voice counterpoint at the beginning - something different than I've done so far in this project. I'd like to tell you that I think it's nice, but in truth I don't know. At this point of the process (after laboring over the arrangement, then practicing it nearly to death, doing multiple takes to record, listening back, etc.) I've pretty much lost all objectivity. I'll have to come back to it and listen in a few days and assess. And even then it won't be the same as how it will sound to me in a few months time. Fun with the artistic process!

This is number 12. I'm officially half way through now. It's not getting easier at this point, but I think that's okay. I didn't do this because I thought it would be easy. Thanks for reading and listening!

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Well hello there. The 11th song of the 24 Standards project is I'll Be Seeing You by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal.

I was only vaguely familiar with this song before I heard the - wait for it...- Frank Sinatra/Tommy Dorsey recording. I fell in love with the tune after listening to that a couple times. I love how the melody keeps climbing in the last eight bars of the tune. It is a widely recorded song, although I only found a couple recordings that included the verse; those by Vera Lynn and Tony Bennet. Other recordings I listened to were Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Cassandra Wilson, Willie Nelson, and Brad Mehldau. But it really came down to that Sinatra/Dorsey recording for me. That's the one I hear in my head when I think of this song.

On another note...let the "mind games" begin. The last two recordings (this one and Stardust) were a challenge. For some reason I've been getting really hung up when I turn the recorder on. Part of the problem is that I'm working alone. In solo piano playing I'm required to make everything happen and I must cover all aspects of the music. If I'm playing with a rhythm section, I can easily stop playing chords and just focus on playing a melody. But here I have to spread my awareness fully across the instrument and fully across the entire soundscape. That may be obvious, but it really increases my respect for the great solo pianists that I've checked out, especially when they improvise lines that are just as beautiful as if they were playing with a band. But mostly my difficulties are from psyching myself out. "Ok, I made it through that section, don't screw up the next part..." and you know what happens when you think like that. In most of these recordings I play my arrangement, and return to the same arrangement after the improvised solo. I often get a little nervous coming out of the improv, especially if there are a couple of challenging spots in the arrangement. Oh, the joys of the mind. It's my basic belief that with good focused work, I can practice my way out of any doubt or distraction. My focus probably suffers sometimes because I'm so interested in (and often obsessed with!) many other things. In the end though, I know that a broad range of interests helps the music. If only I was a better at compartmentalizing. If you have experience growing fruit trees please let me know.

My usual routine for this project is: 1.) Choose a song. 2.) Research it a bit. 3.) Seek out some recordings and listen. 4.) Write the arrangement of the song, usually focusing on the phrasing of the melody first. 5.) Learn my arrangement. 6.) Practice a complete version with an improvised solo. 7.) Record it. 8.) Post it on this here blog.

It's number six that I think is getting me hung up here. I think I need to get number six happening earlier in the process to get over these mind games that I'm playing. It takes awhile to know my arrangement well, but it also takes awhile to intimately know the form of the song for improvising. I probably just need to take more time to do so. What's the rush, right?

So there's a snippet of what can go on inside a musician's mind. Of course there are many wonderful things going on in there too, and I'd be really happy if you think of wonderful things while you listen to this one.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Number ten! Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish was on my list from the very beginning. I’ve loved this song for a long time. I like songs that have a wide range and big arching melodies. I checked out Carmichael’s original recording which interestingly was instrumental, pretty fast, and it didn’t have the verse. The lyrics came a couple years later with Bing Crosby’s recording and that’s when the verse also appeared, at least on the recordings - maybe it had been there from the beginning. This is interesting to me because this is a popular verse - many people know it and play it. And as for the lyrics, I honestly thought that they were written by Hoagy Carmichael himself before I did the research. It’s hard to imagine lyrics that fit the music better than in Stardust.

And now the purple dusk of twilight time

Steals across the meadows of my heart

High up in the sky the little stars climb

Always reminding me that we're apart

You wandered down the lane and far away

Leaving me a song that will not die

Love is now the stardust of yesterday

The music of the years gone by

Sometimes I wonder why I spend

The lonely night dreaming of a song

The melody haunts my reverie

And I am once again with you

When our love was new

And each kiss an inspiration

But that was long ago

Now my consolation

Is in the stardust of a song

Beside a garden wall

When stars are bright

You are in my arms

The nightingale tells his fairy tale

Of paradise where roses bloom

Though I dream in vain

In my heart it will remain

My stardust melody

The memory of love's refrain

I think Stardust is a testament to the power of music. Music can change my mood instantly. As I’ve been doing these standards I’ve noticed how nice it is to get reminders about love. That must be one reason why so many songs are written about it, and in this day and age we need those reminders.

I want to bring up something called “back phrasing”. I heard about it when I was in music school. It refers to when a singer or instrumentalist sings or plays a melody later in time than originally written. If a melody was written as four quarter notes in a measure, it might be sung or played as four eighth notes at the end of the measure, or even going into the next measure. Billie Holiday is famous for doing this. Keith Jarrett does it a lot too. I used it a fair amount in this arrangement, but it actually has been a bit of a challenge to incorporate for me. I’ve been starting my arrangemrnts by writing out the melody in accordance to how I think the lyrics are naturally phrased. And for whatever reason it seems to be more centered, although often slightly different than what’s on the page. But I managed to play around with a touch of back phrasing here and I think it worked pretty well.

There is a recording of this song by Bill Charlap - a pianist that I’ve been listening to quite a bit lately. Check out the youtube video of him playing All The Things You Are on an NPR radio program - so much great piano arranging stuff in just two choruses! If I remember correctly, I originally picked up his album titled Stardust when I was in college after I read a 5-star review of it in Downbeat magazine - something I used to do - if it got 5 stars, I’d get it. Shirley Horne sings Stardust on that record and it stuck with me and is probably the recording I emulated most with my phrasing of the melody.

Now I have to mention Willie Nelson. Many of you know that I’m a big Willie fan. Stardust was the title track of a popular record of his, and I believe it’s one of his hits. It’s quite nice. And I really got a kick out of watching Willie perform it in a youtube video. It was in an episode of the Tonight Show, when Branford Marsalis was the leader of the house band. Willie plays it with Branford’s band backing him - Kenny Kirkland playing organ, Robert Hurst bass, Kevin Eubanks guitar, I think Marvin Smitty Smith on drums. I used to listen to Branford a lot back in the college days, but didn’t really care at all about Willie back then - Willie came later. So it was cool to see this. They really emulate Willie’s studio recording, except instead of a full guitar solo, he shares the space with Branford. Interesting to note, Willie seems to do the opposite of back phrasing. He rushes through the phrases, finishing them early. I’ve noticed he’s doing this more and more in live performance as he’s gotten older, and he seems to “talk” the words more. Too much grass for Willie perhaps?

Monday, January 2, 2017

The ninth song of the 24 Standards Project is Time After Time by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. This is one that I’ve played for a long time. I love the Sinatra and the Chet Baker recordings. But best of all I love the Keith Jarrett Trio Live At The Blue Note recording. That box set is probably the most influential jazz music for me. I know it backward and forward. I think it was the first large collection I bought. I remember buying it at Best Buy when I was a senior in high school - a six CD set - but one of the discs was missing! They let me return it after some convincing by my girlfriend at the time. But shortly after that I picked it up at the Electric Fetus record store in Minneapolis. I loved buying CDs there because they smelled good…. They burned incense in there or something and the stuff you bought there kept that scent for years. Maybe it was a clever marketing trick. Anyway, that box set was my jam, and I love it more than ever. I don’t put it on often anymore, but when I do it seems to get better and better. It’s aged well.

My familiarity with Time After Time actually made it more difficult to arrange. I just wanted to play it instead of slow down and work out some stuff. And since Keith’s recording is spontaneously arranged - so damn beautifully I might add - I just wanted to do the same. Finally I managed to etch something out little by little. It’s also more challenging for me to do medium or fast songs as opposed to ballads, because you have to write less - at least that’s what I think sounds best. I ended up using a certain device quite a bit in my arrangement - something that I’ve heard Hank Jones do a lot, which is melodic fills that are played in octaves. It seems like octaves would give it too much weight, and it seems like one could do better by harmonizing the line instead, but nevertheless I think it’s nice and adds a classic touch. When I started doing some takes and listening back, I decided that I best enjoyed the sections of the solo for which I played a stride groove, so I decided to do that more and more - I went for the “feel” at let everything else take a back seat. I hope you enjoy it.